FLAG scorecard: 89 lawyers perish from Marcos era to Duterte admin

AT least 89 lawyers have either been killed or have gone “missing” from the term of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos up to the term of President Duterte.

Data released by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) showed that the Duterte administration has the highest number of recorded killings and disappearances involving lawyers, prosecutors and judges with 67, while there was none during the term of former President Fidel V. Ramos from 1992-1998.

During the martial law years from 1972 to 1986 under the Marcos regime, there were seven lawyers killed, while nine lawyers were killed during the six-year term of the late President Corazon Aquino from 1986 to 1992.

On the other hand, during the nine years that former President Gloria Macapagal-arroyo was in power from 2001 to 2010, there were nine lawyers killed.

During the term of Arroyo’s predecessor, former President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted through People Power 2, there were only two lawyers killed and one during the term of former President Benigno Aquino Jr. from 2010 to 2016.

Almost all of the victims were shot dead by gunmen except for lawyer Edgar Mendoza who was served with coffee laced with sleeping pills before he was stabbed and burned inside a car on January 9, 2020.

Earlier, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told lawyers to come together and devise measures to protect themselves amid the spate of killings involving members of the legal profession.

Guevarra even offered government’s assistance to expedite the processing of permits to possess and carry firearms for lawyers who intend to arm themselves for protection.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court-office of the Court Administrator (OCA) has recently started its inventory of criminal cases involving lawyers who were either killed, harmed, threatened or attacked under the present administration.

The inventory started three months after Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta issued a memorandum directing Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez to address the “growing concern over the continued attacks against lawyers and judges.”

Last January, upon the directive of CJ Peralta, Marquez held a series of consultations with the Department of Justice, Department of National Defense (DND), Department of the Interior and Localgovernment,the Commission on Human Rights, lawenforcement agencies and lawyers groups on the issues of killings of lawyers and judges.